Wuchang Riverside Wharf, 8:45 am.

Teams of Huai Army soldiers wearing big red military uniforms, black two-cornered hats, black leather boots, black red and white military trousers, carrying flintlock rifles on their shoulders, and grenades hanging around their waists arranged neatly, waiting on the dock.

These are the new Huai Army soldiers who arrived from Guangzhou yesterday. They are all brand new equipment, from weapons to clothing, all new. These soldiers are recruited from farmers from all over the country. All the soldiers chose honest young men. After only three months of training and then after half a year of confrontation exercises, they were put on the battlefield.

Although they were recruits, all the recruits with flintlock guns were absolutely obedient to the orders of their superiors. The soldiers trained in a queue were neatly formed and went to the battlefield like a whole. They were afraid of their commanders, and even more afraid of the enemy's guns and cannons. As long as they did not receive the order to withdraw, these recruits would advance step by step. Even if their comrades around them fell one by one, they would not retreat. Until they shot dense bullets at close range.

The reason why Li Guodong never launched the Northern Expedition was because he regarded the new army as a secret weapon and kept it hidden. He waited until he accumulated enough strength and took it out. He succeeded in the one-time Northern Expedition and advanced all the way northward, making it too late for the Qing government to imitate it, and could push it to the city of Beijing in one breath.

All 50,000 new troops have arrived in Wuchang and are standing on the dock waiting for the order to set off.

The backbone of these 50,000 new troops is 30,000 flintlock spearmen, and there are 3,000 elite heavy cavalry, 2,000 elite scattered soldiers, 5,000 armored grenadiers, 5,000 dragon cavalry and 5,000 artillery soldiers.

Li Guodong stood on the dock by the river, looked around, and opened his voice and shouted loudly: "Brothers in the robes, you are going to cross the Yangtze River today! Although you are new recruits, you are a whole. If you fight alone, you can't defeat the Qing soldiers. But if you are combined together, you have infinite power! Let's put it this way, one-on-one, any of you can't defeat a Qing soldiers; ten-on-ten, you are evenly matched with the Qing soldiers; but one hundred-on-one, you will beat the Qing soldiers! If one thousand people are combined together, even ten-thousand Qing soldiers are not your opponent!"

With the order to "depart", amid the drums of the military band, the new soldiers patted neatly and arranged in an orderly manner on a transport ship that had already been anchored on the shore.

The Yangtze River route is an absolutely safe route. The Huai Army Navy has been renamed as the Navy. The Navy Yangtze River Fleet firmly controls the Yangtze River. The forts along the river and beacon towers are always alert to the movements on the other side. The Huai Army's warships patrol the river surface. In fact, the Huai Army's defense line is not on the Yangtze River, but on the Huai River in the north, the Dabie Mountains, and Xiangyang.

Although the Qing army occupied Xiangyang, it was firmly controlled by the Ming army between Xiangyang and Hankou.

There are Li Guodong's own Huai Army in the two Huai Rivers, there are Zhongzhen Camp from the Dabie Mountains to the Hanjiang Plain, and there are Daxi Army in Sichuan. These troops have implemented the principle of guarding the river and defending the Huai River, so that the Qing army will not be allowed to cross the mines. Even if a little Gu Qing army escapes the net and comes to the river, they cannot cross the Yangtze River defense line that the navy has strictly guarded.

The new army soldiers boarded the boat, crossed the Yangtze River, landed in Hanyang opposite, and then entered Hanyang City to rest and wait for other follow-up troops to cross the river.

The baggage soldiers also began to cross the river. Although these baggage soldiers were auxiliary soldiers, they were also the latest baggage soldiers. They were equipped with new four-wheeled carriages to transport food and ammunition. Each carriage was a mobile castle. The engineers crossed the river with the baggage soldiers, and the engineers were also equipped with four-wheeled carriages, but the carriages transported wire mesh and wooden piles, as well as various tools of the engineers, which were also placed on the carriages.

After the new type of baggage and engineers crossed the river, the next thing to cross the river was the old-fashioned army of the Huai Army.

Although it is an old army, most of the musketeers have replaced the weapons, and the original old bird gun was eliminated and the new flintlock gun was replaced. Although the archers were retained, all the bows have been replaced with new pulley bows. The strength of pulling the bow is much more labor-saving than that of the old bow.

The infantry of the old army also had half of the hand-to-hand combat troops, but most of them were heavy armored infantry. Although the armor on them was not as good as the iron-armored grenadiers of the new army, they were not something that ordinary Qing troops could withstand.

It is not a matter of 400,000 troops crossing the river. It took the Huai Army three days to cross the 400,000 troops from the Northern Expedition to cross the Yangtze River.

On the morning of the fourth day, the army left Hanyang City and attacked towards Xiangyang along the right bank of the Han River.

In front of the team, there were elite Ye Busuo responsible for exploring the way and spying on the enemy's situation. There were also plainclothes spies scattered around the Jinyiwei, closely following the movements of the Qing army.

Xiangyang City, the five provinces’ government offices.

In the Qing army's convention hall, a picture of a tiger was hung on the wall in the middle. Hong Chengchou sat on the chair of the Grand Tutor in front of the tiger, and the Qing army's admirals, generals, deputy generals, chief commanders, generals, generals, generals, assistant leaders, assistant leaders and other officers at all levels of the Green Camp and Eight Banners.

Although Hong Chengchou was a Han minister, the military and political power of the entire Central Plains, Shaanxi and northern Hubei were in his hands. The governors, admirals, and generals of the Eight Banners would respectfully call him Lord Hong when they saw Hong Chengchou.

"The army of the Southern Barbarians is coming, and Li Laoer, the dog thief, gave up the canal waterway, but wanted to fight northward by land! The battle of Xiangyang is the key battle for the life and death of our Qing Dynasty!" Hong Chengchou stood up, walked to the table, gestured to the map and said.

"This battle is indeed a decisive battle between the Qing Dynasty and the Southern Barbarians! Only victory is allowed in this battle but not defeat!" Prince Zheng Jierhalang said.

Tong Tulai, the pseudo-Huguang Governor, also said: "The Southern Barbarians are coming in a fierce manner. We must defeat the barbarians in Xiangyang! Strike the dog thief Li Laoer! Seeing that my regent of the Qing Dynasty died, this thief brazenly tore up the treaty and sent troops to invade the border! This thief is very hateful!"

Someone muttered in his heart: The death of the Regent is very strange. Although he was in poor health, he would not have been seriously injured after riding a horse. The Southern Barbarians may be right, but someone secretly harmed the Regent.

Chengtian Prefecture, which is today's Zhongxiang City, has more than 50,000 regiments stationed here. These are the landlord armed forces of the gentry, not the regular army of the Qing Dynasty. The trainees wore gray clothes, with the word "道" written on their clothes, and had red tassels and white hats on their heads. These trainees were all landlord armed forces formed by Hong Chengchou after he arrived in Xiangyang. Because the Zhongzhen Camp was in trouble in Hubei, the local gentry responded to Hong Chengchou and formed a large number of landlord armed forces. Near Xiangyang, there were landlord armed forces formed by landlord gentry in almost every village.

The weapons and equipment of the group training are actually not inferior to the Qing army in the Green Camp. Most of the landlords and gentry have money. In order to protect their vested interests, these landlords and gentry are willing to spend money when purchasing weapons and practicing group training.

The Duke of Chu of the Ming Dynasty was obviously a thief who was with the thieves and wanted to defeat the local tyrants and divide the land. Therefore, in the eyes of those traditional land gentry, the Duke of Chu was the enemy.

Why did those gentry refuse to transform? Not both the gentry in Jiangnan and the gentry in Huaihe River have transformed well? There is no way. These gentry have no way to go to business and can only rely on collecting land rent to support the family.

"Master Liu! Master Liu, something is wrong, the Southern Thief is here!" A servant crawled into Liu Juren's study.

"The soldiers come and the generals block the water and the soil!" Liu Juren stood up, "There are more than 100,000 troops around us, and they are afraid that they can't stop the southern thieves?"

Between Jingyue Lake and Yujue Mountains south of Chengtian Prefecture, Tuanlian built a fifteen-mile-long Tushima City. The local gentry tried to use this Tushima City to block the Huai Army's pace of going north.
Chapter completed!